Once and Never Again
by yeti of me
Summary: Ares, a Greek God, was 'banished' to Earth for the first time. Lost and unfamiliar, unable to reveal himself as a God, Anna was willing to help him find his way home. But what happens when they start to fall in love?
1. Prologue

_Author's Note: Just let (in order of appearance in this chapter)  
>-Jason (Ryne Sanborn) be Perieres<br>-Troy (Zac Efron) be Ares  
>-David Efron be Agenor<em>  
><strong><br>Prologue**

"Ares," Perieres shouted. "Grab me my electric guitar!"

In the modern day Mount Olympus, these groovy Greek Gods have the modern time advanced technologies, like the electric guitar, and the iPod. Immersed in his favourite song, 'Lightning' by The Wanted, he could not hear his brother talking to him.

Ares blatantly sauntered past him to take his PSP and plugged in 'Dante's Inferno', and then he looked up and noticed Perieres' fuming face: veins protruding from his from his forehead, his gritted teeth, his squinted eyes, his flared nostrils and his clenched neck. He was burning a hole in the layer of clouds he was standing on.

"Whoa, bro," Ares advised him as he slung his arm around Perieres, "You gotta relax."

Using his super speed, he got some ice cubes and offered, "Here, some ice cubes will help."

Perieres slapped his handful of ice cubes away and they accidentally fell through the thin layer of clouds beneath them. "Ouch!" a human yelled and looked up into the sky, wondering where the ice cubes came from which struck his head.

'I SWEAR I WILL KILL YOU…'

When Ares heard Perieres' menacing thought, he plugged out his iPod and threw it at Perieres, which hit him in his face and angered him further. He then super sped to hide from Perieres. Whenever Perieres is in a bad mood, he tends to throw tantrums, and only strumming on his electric guitar will help soothe himself. He flipped tables, chairs, Agenor's statues, broke all of them using his super strength and roared like a mad gorilla. Agenor stormed out of the room and bellowed, "Be quiet!"

Perieres flung a piece of antique mirror at his own father which shattered upon making contact with Agenor's head. Agenor snarled at Perieres just as Ares emerged from his hiding place: a mere pillar. Almost as immediately as he laid his eyes on Ares, Perieres dumped all the blame on him.

"Ares was the one who broke all these! The mirror wasn't meant for you, my dear father, but meant for him," he sucked up to Agenor and pointed accusingly at Ares. "It was all Ares' fault," he reiterated, smiling smugly at his brother.

Perieres might have thought he had won, but Ares heard his father's thoughts, 'Such monstrosity. I shall banish them both to Earth…'

Agenor then read his son's mind, 'Oh no. Earth? I have never been there before! What do I do!'

Agenor smiled to himself and watched Ares' bewildered expression. Rubbing his palms together, he declared, "Both, banished to Earth!"

With that, both brothers vanished into the air, falling their way down to Earth.


	2. First Met

_Author's Note: Just let (in order of appearance in this chapter)  
>-Troy (Zac Efron) be Ares<br>-Jason (Ryne Sanborn) be Perieres  
>-Gabriella (Vanessa Hudgens) be Anna<br>-Ruco Chan [(Keith Lau in The Other Truth), a HK drama serial set] be__ Anthony__  
>- Kenneth Ma [(<em>_Kong Lok-Man in The Other Truth), a HK drama serial set] be Antonio  
>-Starla Efron be Lisa<br>-David Efron be Agenor_

**Chapter 1: First Met**

Ares was still screaming his lungs out even after five minutes of descending their way down to Earth.

"Rookie advice: Be sure to land on a safe spot, even if we're immortal," he told Ares vaguely. "Oh, I have a map of Earth for you," Perieres told him smugly and took out a huge map of Earth.

Because they were falling so fast, the map almost flew out of Ares' grip when Perieres handed it over to him. But Ares quickly folded it using his super speed and tucked it his torso pocket flap. "Thank you?" Ares wondered if he was really supposed to thank his brother for the map.

They continued falling. Having remembered something important, Perieres told his younger brother, "And a rookie must-know: It takes exactly seven Earth days to fall from Mount Olympus down to Earth. So you pretty much have seven days to decide where you wanna go before you touchdown. Plus, the horrible part is when the weather gets real bad. Pray hard that no thunderstorms will hit for the week!"

Suddenly his eyes lit up. Perieres had seen his destination. "Bye, _Ariel_," Perieres made fun of Ares' name and veered to the left, disappearing into the white fluffy clouds which looked little like sheep.

"Perieres!" Ares called out for his brother, starting to panic.

He scrambled in mid-air, not knowing where to go. He was now all alone. He wanted to cry. He tried going in Perieres' direction but he did a somersault instead and tumbled in the air. Perieres had flown countless times before. He always got into trouble and was always suspended to Earth. You could very well say that Earth could be his second home. But Ares, on the other hand, was inexperienced in flying. Actually, this was his first time. Because he was such a goody, goody boy, he had never been into trouble, and never been onto Earth before. Not even once. Ares was the only brother who was conceived at Mount Olympus, and therefore was blessed with many various powers other than his super speed and his ability to read minds.

Ares had lost sight of him after getting a glimpse of a tiny silhouette, Perieres' silhouette, vanishing into more white, cottony clouds.

"PERIERES!" Ares screamed for the last time as he continued falling for the next seven days.

/

Ares was bored to death. I mean, who wouldn't get seriously bored if you were to fall for seven days, and day after day, night after night, all you could see was nothing but the sky and the clouds? Well, it's different from eating ambrosia every day, because that is just seriously good stuff.

But at last, he caught sight of Earth. "About time!" he retorted.

Earth was… beautiful. He admired the green of the fresh grasses, the blue of the oceans, and the shimmering gold of the deserts. Ares found the map useless at that point of time because he didn't know how to use it. So instead of figuring out where to go, he let himself fall freely down to Earth. He knew he would be safe if he did not land on any vast areas of blue. Definitely, he would not meet Perieres; he was long gone. And as he falls, he saw more green than blue, so he should land safely on the green, luscious and soft patch of grasses.

With the winds rushing on his face, Earth became clearer as he got closer, but he was also blinded by the hot and scorching afternoon sun. He saw the greens getting closer, and then he saw buildings, both high-rise and low-rise. He was getting closer to the ground. He saw moving buggies, what we call cars, and long ones, what we call busses, and yellow ones, what we call taxis. They were like swarming ants on the busy road.

Then he caught sight of humans, Zeus' creation since millions and billions and trillions of years ago, still only as big as his one finger held out. The world neared him and he yelled again, knowing he was close to impact, "Ah!"

He crashed in the middle of the road, with a white enormous truck charging at him. He felt as if he had broken every bone in his body. Slowly, he stood up, his head throbbing and he creased his brows because of that. Dusting himself all over, he heard someone, more like a girl, screaming something like, "Get out of the way!"

The next thing he knew, a horn sounded a couple times before he was pushed to the sidewalk by so much force he thought he had shattered all his bones once again. He lay motionless on the ground.

"Oh, my gosh! Are you insane!" the girl who saved him yelled from above him.

He frowned, confused. She was kneeling above him, her legs apart, on his thighs while he lay on his back. Their faces were inches apart. He could feel her sweet warm breath against his face.

"What?" Ares blinked, dumbfounded by what had just happened.

People on the streets did not even bother crowding around to see what had happened, because of what Ares was wearing: a fresh white chiton. It was a piece of cloth ancient Greeks wore and Greek Gods just wore a more sophisticated one.

"Gosh, what a weirdo."

"Oh, my god, what the heck is he wearing?"

"Freakishly weird kid."

"He looks like he just came out from a failed audition to a lame ancient Roman play."

Pedestrians just laughed and made fun of Ares. The driver driving the truck drove away, without an apology. Others walked past them, pretending to not even see the two on the pavement. She got up and brushed herself clean then took a few seconds to fix her long, wavy brunette hair. Ares continued to lie on the floor, and closed his eyes while she stood where she was, brushing her pink dress. He took some time to take in what had just happened.

Ares got up onto his feet again, and stretched, standing on the dirt he was not familiar with. Back at Mount Olympus, the floor was just a layer of water vapour. She looked up at him, only realizing he was one head taller than her.

"Hello," he stuck out a hand, "My name's Ares. Thank you for saving my life back there."

"Oh, um, hello. I'm Anna, and you're welcome," she replied and cautiously shook his hand.

"What are you wearing?" she asked curiously, her eyes roaming up and down his body.

"It's a chiton. As you can see, it's a white sleeveless tunic. Most Greeks and Greek Gods wear it. It's just that Gods wear more fancy ones," he explained.

Ares beamed down at himself, obviously proud to be a God. But then now he was banished to Earth. He did not think he could be a God anymore. He just wished he still had his powers. He then remembered the map Perieres gave him. Hastily, he took it out.

"Hey, can you tell me where I am?" he asked her, unfolding the map and holding it out in front of them so that she could see it too.

Almost immediately, she pointed to a part in the United States and said, "New York City. Or otherwise, it is also known as the Big Apple."

Ares lifted a brow at her. "I have never heard of this city before."

Feeling like a frog in a well, he felt embarrassed, his face turning red. Anna pondered for a moment. Then she had an idea.

"I can show you around New York for a few days. I'm totally free. You in?" Anna asked, all hyped up, with a wide grin on her face.

Ares nodded. "Sure."

"But first, let's get you something else to wear."

/

Ares found it funny. Why did he have to wear something else? He already had his fancy Godly chiton! What else does he need?

He stood in front of a full length mirror. It was appalling to see himself wearing a black polo shirt and navy blue jeans. Those were never his _'thing'_. His sandals were replaced with hard Vans sneakers. Ares shifted uneasily at his feet.

"Hey, what's wrong with what I was wearing?" he frowned into the mirror, despising his new outfit.

"Well, you look better with modern clothes, rather than the ones you were wearing," Anna told him truthfully.

"Well, I don't care. I'm changing back," Ares said as he went back into the fitting room in a huff.

He then came back out, wearing his chiton and sandals. "Much better," he smiled to himself, smoothing out the creases.

"But you don't fit in. Everyone's looking at you weirdly," Anna explained.

She was right. When people came into the shop and then saw him, they hurried off again, like he was some infectious airborne disease. So far, they were successful at ignoring those people. But they were evidently causing this shop to lose their customers.

"But I look nicer in these!" he exclaimed, referring to his chiton and threw his hands up to make his point. "Don't I look godly? After all I _am_ a G-" he got cut off by the sharp pain in his chest.

"Ouch!" he yelped, clutching his chest.

"What happened?" Anna was shocked too, and she lightly touched his arm.

Groaning, he took out the map which was burning him from his torso flap pocket. But there was no fire and the map was not on fire, nor hot. Then on the map he saw the words appear in gold: 'Never reveal your true self to anyone'. The words had disappeared as soon as they had appeared. Ares kept the map, his eyes wide with fear.

"Ares, is something wrong?" she asked when she noticed his petrified expression.

"Um, I'm fine, don't worry. I just feel that today is quite a…" his voice trailed off, as he looked for a suitable adjective, and continued, "A magical day."

"Really?" Anna didn't believe him at first.

Ares' eyes darted around the shop. He managed to change the subject by reminding her, "You promised to get me _something else_ to wear."

Smiling, she grabbed his hand and bounced out of the store.

/

Anthony wondered where his girlfriend was.

Seriously, he had been calling her for the past half an hour. She had never not answered her phone at this hour. She would usually be home, getting comfortable on the couch, snacking, her eyes fixed to the television screen. It was nearly five. His baseball practice had ended half an hour ago. He promised to call her after his practice. But now, she was the one not answering his calls.

Anthony went to the kitchen to grab some snacks and flopped onto the couch, feeling dejected, and worried. He watched some television, deciding to try again later. He just hoped she would be fine.

/

Ares stood in front of a full length mirror once again. This time, he was wearing a cowboy's outfit, and also the compromising hat. He studied himself closely in the mirror, scrunching his nose adorably. Then he concluded, "Nah, not this one."

Ares changed into another outfit, a simple sky blue V-neck tee and a pair of light brown Bermuda shorts. He kept his own sandals on. Checking himself out in the mirror, he smirked, "Hey, I look good. I'm taking this one."

Anna was drooling over how cute he was, while her phone was vibrating non-stop in her bag. And she didn't even notice. She was too busy trying to dress Ares for the day and buy him some more for his future use. Anna grabbed her bag and reached for her purse, but she still hadn't known that she had a dozen missed calls already.

After getting the paid bags, they headed out to a few more stores. Ares got comfortable with more of the casual wear, so Anna paid for all of them. It was already 7pm, going eight at night, so they went to a nice Italian restaurant and talked over a candle lit dinner.

"So, you're really from Greece?" Anna asked, sucking on some fresh bread before their main course arrives.

Ares wanted to say 'no', but he remembered the gold words on the map. "Yes, I am," he lied.

He felt bad keeping the truth from her. Actually, it was his first time he ever lied in his entire billion years of existence. But he knew he had to obey the map. He couldn't possibly defy the words in gold on the holy map. He just hoped he had no need to lie to her, or anyone else, anymore.

She beamed at him, her smile radiant, and he was awe-struck by her beauty. Her warm mocha eyes, her silky yet wavy brunette curls, her cute nose, her perfect smile… Maybe being banished onto Earth isn't that bad after all, he mused.

"Well, that's cool. I've never been to Greece. How's it like over there?" she leaned forward, showing her interest, and also her cleavage from the top of her grey low-neckline t-shirt that she had changed into instead of her prop pink dress she was wearing.

Ares swallowed, upon the sight of the top of her boobs. He couldn't take his eyes off of them. "It's beautiful," was all Ares could say.

He had admired Greece from Mount Olympus and it was indeed magnificent. The houses were fantastic, the scenery so wonderful and the beaches looked amazing. The waters were so clean you can see your toes and the sand so soft and white that you feel as though you're stepping on cotton candy.

"Will you take me there one day?" Anna blurted out.

Ares looked into her eyes and he couldn't help but bared his teeth in an ear to ear grin. "Of course," he promised.

After they ate their penne pasta, which Ares could also not eat, due to being a God, but he was scared Anna would think he was anorexic or something, which he was not, they walked out the restaurant. Once again, Anna paid for dinner. "When you bring me around Greece, you're paying for everything," Anna demanded and they laughed, Ares nodding promisingly. "Anyway, where do you live?"

"Um, I… " his voice trailed off.

Anna raised her brows, pursing her lips, waiting for his answer.

"I don't have a home here," he admitted, his smile fading away.

"Well, I know you don't have any currency on you so you can't possibly check into a hotel here. And even if you did, you still can't; they cost a bomb," she told him truthfully.

"I can always find another place to stay temporarily somewhere," Ares told her as he looked around the street aimlessly.

"Or, you can always spend a night or two at my place for the time being, if you'd like," she offered.

"Yeah, I would really love that, thank you," he agreed immediately.

Anna led the way to her house, taking out her phone to inform her step-brother, and finally saw that she had a dozen missed calls. All from Anthony.

"Oh, my gosh! Anthony! I totally forgot!" she hastily pressed redial.

"Anna! Are you okay? Where were you? And where are you now?" Anthony gushed over the phone the moment he saw that it was his girlfriend calling.

"Oh, Anthony, I'm so sorry. I'm coming home soon. Don't worry, I'm fine," Anna assured him.

"Okay, good," he heaved a sigh of relief. "Damn, Anna, I was worried sick about you!" Anthony sighed into the receiver.

"Don't worry. I'm five minutes away," she reassured her boyfriend. "Oh, wait, can you get Antonio on the line, please?" She asked in the cute way Anthony loved.

He passed the phone over to her step-brother. "What is it?" Antonio asked.

"Erm, I have a friend. Can he stay over?" Anna asked hopefully.

"Sure- wait. _He?"_ Antonio was taken by surprise.

"He's from Greece. Oh, please, please, please," she begged.

Ares let out a small chuckle, obviously laughing at her. She lightly smacked his arm and pouted. "Hey!" Ares feigned pain. Anna just stuck out her tongue at him.

"No," Antonio replied without hesitation. "I am _not_ going to let a Greek stranger stay over at our place," he continued sternly.

"Please, please, PLEASE," Anna pleaded.

"No," he repeated.

Anna started moaning and groaning and cursing him about how thoughtless and heartless he was. So he agreed, "Fine, fine, let's talk when you're home."

"Yay, thank you!" Anna squealed and she hung up because she knew it means 'yes'.

Ares gave her a hopeful and thankful smile. Anna beamed at him and they walked up the driveway.

Her house was just a two-story terrace, with a small lawn and backyard, a garage and of course the porch and driveway. Perfect for three people and just enough room for one more guest.

When they entered the house, Anthony grabbed her and lifted her up and span her round and round. Giggling, she kissed him on his cheek and he put her down. "I missed you," Anthony told her, their hands intertwined, their eyes only on each other.

Anna smiled at him and introduced Ares to her boyfriend and brother, "Guys, this is Ares. He's the friend I told you about, from Greece."

Her green eyed step-brother studied him for a while, with one hand at his chin and the other crossed at his chest. "Eh, what the heck, he seems decent enough. He can stay," Antonio said while walking away to continue his television program.

Anthony frowned at his girlfriend, obviously getting jealous because she brought home another guy, a total stranger, whom she only knew for less than half a day and she was already getting comfortable with him. "Erm, Anne, you never told me about him on the phone just now," Anthony asked, getting suspicious.

Anna merely smiled at Anthony and simply told him it was a surprise. But Anthony didn't see it as a surprise at all. Then he asked about his clothes, "Dude, what kind of clothes are you wearing?"

"It's a chiton. Uh, it's a sleeveless tunic," Ares smiled.

Anthony couldn't care less so he turned and walked away. "Yeah, and I don't care," he sighed, rolling his eyes.

Anna assured Ares, "Don't worry, I'll talk to him."

Ares nodded and gave her an apologetic smile. Anna shook her head, meaning it was okay, and smiled wanly. Ares just hoped that her family would accept him, and not see him as an outcast who dresses like a freakish weirdo. He hoped he would fit in. If not, he wished to go back home. If only he knew how. He bit his lower lip and sighed, as Anna showed him his temporary room to rest in, although he never needed to sleep. He just wanted to go home so badly. The truth was he missed his family. He missed his four other brothers, his father, and especially his mother.

/

Lisa begged her husband to bring Ares back home.

"No," Agenor said firmly, not changing his mind.

Lisa's tears fell onto the floor and through the clouds, and her tears became rain on Earth in Greece. She got down on her knees and begged him. She would do anything to get Ares back home. She wasn't worried about Perieres; he knew Earth better than Ares. She was afraid Ares would be lost and all alone on Earth.

"Ares was sent there as a punishment and he will return with Perieres, when they have served their sentence on Earth," Agenor repeated, still not listening to his wife's pleas.

"How long do you plan on keeping him there then?" she asked him, her eyes red and sore from crying.

"Until I'm satisfied," he simply told her, retreating into his room.

Lisa watched him go, and she sighed. She hoped Ares would be fine on Earth. She knew he wouldn't be with his brother, because Perieres was always teasing and bullying Ares. At times they may seem alright, but when Perieres loses his temper, everyone flees from him. Perieres may be the third brother of the family, but that does not give him a reason to bully Ares.

A day in Mount Olympus was a second on Earth. She wished the days would go by quicker. Her heart was broken. It was obvious she missed her youngest son dearly. Even though she was already in Heaven, she prayed that Ares would find his way back to Mount Olympus soon.


End file.
